Scenerios+Sharing

Scenario 1: Setting: Middle School Issue: Mrs. C got angry but no one (students) knows she was mad One student was disobedient in class, Mrs. C got really angry. Her face became really serious with no expression, she folded up both of her arms and started to pace around the classroom in a circle. The whole class thought Mrs. C went into a “coma”, and they all started to talk and act out. Mrs. C didn’t know what to do other than continue to pace around the classroom with her arms folded and with a solemn face, hoping the students will get the “hint” that she is really angry.

Culture differences: Looking into the eye One strategy to get students to quiet down in classroom is to stand in front of the classroom being extremely quiet. Even though Mrs. C was quiet, she forgot a huge “technique” of quieting students down is to “look students in the eyes”. In Asian culture, confrontation is what everyone tries to avoid, looking a person in the eye meaning confrontation; but in American culture, looking into someone’s eyes is to show interest and get his or her attention.

Scenario 2: Setting: Middle School Issue: When Student A was doing a presentation, his pants fell half way down to his knee accidentally. The whole class started to laugh uncontrollably. Mrs. C tried to calm the class down by ignoring the situation and took over and started teaching.

Culture differences: Never ignore situation happens in class Chinese often “ignore” what’s going on to pretend that nothing has happened. If Mrs. C knows what happened was truly an accidenct and knows that Student A was embarrassed but ok with the situation, she could have had a little good laugh with everyone. Then Mrs. C should address to the class to leave “the image” behind them and move on.

But if it’s not an accidenct, Mrs. C needs to pull the student aside, looking into his eyes and give a serious warning. Normally, there are consequences for wearing pants too low in school. If the student is denying his act, Mrs. C could say the whole class is his witness and he cannot get away with what has happened. THEN Mrs. C needs to face the whole class and talk about the issue and warn them not to follow the “footstep” because of the consequences followed.

When things happen in class, either it’s fun or not fun, as a teacher, you need to mark a period of the episode that has happened in order to move on to the next thing you have planned to do in teaching.

Scenario 3:

Mrs. C has problem pronouncing “sheet”, she mistakenly saying “shit” instead of “sheet”. Students often giggle when Mrs. C says “please take out a “shit” of paper to take the quiz.”

Culture differences: Have students help with your pronunciation as you are helping them with Chinese. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When noticing students giggling, it’s a time to figure out why. There are lots of time, admitting your weakness to the students, help building the relationship. Make sure you know there is a fine line between being their friends and still be a teacher with appropriate boundaries. Use this as an example of something that happens during language learning. While the pronunciation isn’t perfect, as native speakers the students understand what it is the non-native speaker is trying to say. While not perfect, the information is communicated. Share with the students that their pronunciation won’t be perfect either, but with practice it will get better - and that you, the teacher, will try not to laugh too much at their pronunciation, and and you can help each other.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Scenario 4: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Student A cheated on a quiz, Mrs. C wasn’t too sure about it because she didn’t see him doing the act, but is 90% sure about Student A doing it.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Solution: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Walking over to Student A and standing next to him/her for the rest of the test time while still keeping an eye on the whole class. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moving around the classroom is a key strategy in classroom management. If you have students off task (not doing what they are supposed to be doing), move and stand beside those students. Your physical presence will encourage the students to get back on task. If they do not get back on task, you can quietly and quickly tell them to get back on task without interrupting class.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You want to always circle around the classroom to not only assist students with their needs but also to prevent students from having the chance to cheat or be off task.. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Scenario 5: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One day in class, after Mrs. C wrote something on the white board, she found some pieces of wadded up tissue on the floor; she continued to teach. Then again, after she wrote something on the white board, more wadded up tissues were on the floor. Since she didn’t know who threw them on the floor and she was sure students would not admit who did it. She continue teaching.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Solution: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In a lot of situations, silence is agreeing. Students see your silence as you being OK with tissues on the floor. Your incompetence on dealing with students in this situation will create more problems in the future.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Stop teaching when you find tissues on the floor, ask “who did it?”. Give a dead silence treatment to the whole class, staring students into their eyes one by one without saying a word. And ask one more time, “who has done it?”; if there is still no answer, you can say “since no one will admit the “crime”, the whole class will have to pick them up and throw them in the trash. If anyone complains, I will call the assistant principal (or an administrator in charge of that grade) to come into the classroom to see the all the tissues you threw on the ground.” familiarize the discipline procedure and who you can turn to when situation arise is very important!

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Scenario 6:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Student A, B and C are good friends, they like to chat in class. The situation got worse as the semester continued. Mrs. C started with warning students not to talk, it didn’t work, so she changed their seating to separate them, but the students started to talk across the room and pass around notes.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Solution: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Classroom rules need to explicit explain the discipline procedure. Classroom rule like this needed to be talked about on the first day of class:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">IF YOU CHOOSE TO BREAK A RULE

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//Janna’s note: (Always check on school disciplinary procedures. Do not go into classroom feeling like you have to come up with everything. However, it is best to handle the situation immediately instead of sending students out of the door)//

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1st Phase: Receive verbal warning. Document offense. 2nd Phase: Phone parents. Excessive tardies or disturbance in class reported to Main Office. Lose passport & other classroom or School privileges. 3rd Phase: Write referrals to Assistant Principal. Assign In-School Suspension or After-School Detentions.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">SEVERE DISRUPTION: STUDENT WILL BE SENT TO THE OFFICE IMMEDIATELY

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In order not to send kids out of the classroom to Principal's office or “In-School Suspension”, a few steps can be taken:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Remove the student who caused the most problem to the front of the room next to where you teach, and facing the whole class. Make sure you check on him/her often with eye contact, a tap on the shoulder; when the student quiet down and behave better, send him/her back to his/her own seat with the warning of what next step you will take if he/she misbehave again. 2. Talk to the teacher next door to you about your discipline plan. If it’s OK to send students to his/her classroom for 5-10 mins to cool down. Ask this teacher to set a chair in the corner for any student you send over. Make sure that you prepare a package of work to send along with the disturbing student to that classroom, so he/she has things to work on. 3. Make sure you document and contact parents about incidence that happened daily!! Email first, and phone call after if email didn’t reach the parents or guardians. 4. After these steps were taken, but still doesn’t work, please follow the school disciplinary plan to discipline the student (e.g. in-school suspension, referrals, etc.)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Janna’s Scenario 1) First day of class, as you attempt to get to know your students, a kid blurb out inappropriate word in effort to catch your attention Solution: Since it is the first day, use this as a “teachable” moment and ask for feedback after you delivery your behavior outline. The interaction with students will allow them to think about the event and become equal contributors in the classroom. Getting upset with the student will only fuel the behavior and others who does want to learn will not have the chance to do so.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2) Student walk in your classroom and said, “I HATE CHINESE!” he/she proceed to make your life miserable in every possible way by ignoring all rules.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Solution: We are all humans. In my classroom, I always tell students they have a choice how they want to handle their day. Perhaps there is more to the story. He/she may had a really bad day, something night have happened at home, during the earlier period or more. Instead of feeling offended, try to see it from the perspective of the students. I always give myself the 1 min. reaction rule. before I react to the situation, I take one minute time out and think about the situation

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3) You caught a student using online translator for a “sentence”. It is written in the course outline as unacceptable behavior, what do you do? (fix the wording of the scenario)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Solution: Very often, we “expect” students to understand what is laid out the course outline and never really explain it. Keep in mind that students needs concrete example to understand what they are being expected of. At the beginning of the school year, I will show an example with the entire class of an online translation that makes no sense at all. Once students sees that in action, they will understand the “reason” why not to use. As for the consequence, again, it depends on how it was laid out in your classroom.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4) You are teaching a new Chinese word, but a kid keeps on saying it incorrectly, although it is your policy to not to correct the tones, other students are making fun of the student. Solution: Do not EVER just ignore the issue. In case like this, it depends on the actual students, which is why it is very important to get to know them. Some kids can handle the joke better then others. In my classroom, I have a phrase to always laugh at myself, and learn a language. I create a very forgiving language classroom learning experience very early on and I always poke fun at myself to show that error is unavoidable.